Firefox open with new tab not default home page
Despite doing a refresh of firefox to try and fix this issue .....every time I start firefox it opens with a new tab page as my home page and not what I set my home page as in options. For example Yahoo.com or Google.com. When I start in safe mode everything works like I want.. default home page is displayed. Even if I open additional new browser windows in safe mode it works. If I start the browser with add-ons disabled via the option under Help it works maybe once or twice then the new tab is again displayed as my home page. If I manually disable the 4 add-ons under Tools/add-ons in the browser (McAfee web advisor, Better Privacy, addblockplus and new tab tool bar button) when I restart firefox it reacts the same as I stated above. Any ideas to fix this?
Chosen solution
When you say you get a new tab, do you mean the page with tiles for sites in your history, or a completely blank tab?
There were a couple of posts last week that the home page wasn't loading at startup, and the user needed to click the Home button to display the page. Does that seem to be the same issue you're having?
In the following thread, clearing a settings file (renaming prefs.js to force Firefox to return to many default settings) resolved the issue, but that's a bit drastic, so we might do a little more troubleshooting first... When I open Firefox it does not go to my home page even though my setting are set to go to home page when Firefox is opened.
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Chosen Solution
When you say you get a new tab, do you mean the page with tiles for sites in your history, or a completely blank tab?
There were a couple of posts last week that the home page wasn't loading at startup, and the user needed to click the Home button to display the page. Does that seem to be the same issue you're having?
In the following thread, clearing a settings file (renaming prefs.js to force Firefox to return to many default settings) resolved the issue, but that's a bit drastic, so we might do a little more troubleshooting first... When I open Firefox it does not go to my home page even though my setting are set to go to home page when Firefox is opened.
A blank new tab is what I get. if I click the home button it does go to my home page. The issue is when the browser opens.
sorry...and to answer your other question.."There were a couple of posts last week that the home page wasn't loading at startup, and the user needed to click the Home button to display the page. Does that seem to be the same issue you're having?" Yes. I don't get the default homepage..say Yahoo.com.. I get a Blank New Tab as a home page. But as I mentioned if I click the home button it does goto the expected Yahoo.com page. Hope I made it clear :-)
Currently I don't have a clear idea of what causes this. If it becomes intolerable, you could try the approach that worked in the other thread. Please keep the old prefs.js file (for example, rename it to prefs-old.js or copy it to a different folder) in case there is any irreplaceable data in there.
I just completed doing that. I rename prefs.js in proper folder shown by Help-Trouble-shooting Information and closed the browser. I restarted the browser again and despite a few tabs coming up the first time and having close those and having to reset my default home page it now works 100% all the time ( 30 opens and closes) and I can't see any other negative side effect. I also checked and it did create a new prefs.js. So I am thinking somehow the 44.0 update and a combo of something else perhaps messed up that file. All good now.. I hope for a very long time. Thanks for taking time out to help me. Appreciate it. :-)
Thanks for the update.
If curiosity gets the better of you, you could look in the file at the customized settings (right-click > Edit, don't double-click), but it's probably a needle-in-a-haystack situation.
If you want to share the contents for someone else to look at, you can create a new "paste" on the following site (no login required):
Please skim through and remove any personal information before posting there (even if you choose Unlisted, I don't know how private it really is).
There is a possibility that some of you are suffering from a known bug with Firefox 44. ( Bug 1243549 - When I run (launch, open...) Firefox for the first time during a session I get a blank page instead of my usual home page. )
The defining features of the bug are
- Firefox has been set to clear History on closedown
- An intermittent problem on closedown {You may not be directly aware of that)
- Problems on restarting after the close down issue. This could result in for instance a blank tab displaying.
For further info please see my post in
- Would You Please Just Fix The Not Going To Homepage Issue With Firefox /questions/1110662#answer-846478